Bible Verses about Nature
Introduction
The Hebrew word bara, to create, is used exclusively of God throughout the Old Testament. Human beings make things from existing materials. God alone brings into existence what was not there before, and the first object of that creative act is the natural world: the heavens and the earth, the waters and the dry land, the plants and the creatures, all of it called into being by the word of God and declared good before a human being has drawn a single breath. Nature in the biblical imagination is not the backdrop against which the human story takes place. It is itself a work of God, carrying his fingerprints, declaring his glory, and waiting for the redemption that the whole of Scripture is moving toward.
The Greek word ktisis, creation or creature, is the word Paul uses in Romans 8 when he describes the whole created order groaning together in the pains of childbirth, waiting for the revelation of the children of God. The natural world in Paul's vision is not indifferent to the human story. It is caught up in it, affected by the fall, and included in the hope of restoration. Nature is not merely the stage. It is a participant in the drama.
What the Bible offers on the subject of nature runs in several directions at once. There is the nature that declares the glory of God to anyone who stops to listen. There is the nature that has been subjected to futility by human sin and groans for release. There is the nature that Jesus calms, walks on, and commands, demonstrating his authority over what his Father made. And there is the nature that will be transformed rather than discarded in the new creation, a renewed heaven and earth that carries the best of what was made in the beginning into what God is making at the end.
Creation Declares the Glory of God
Psalm 19:1-2 The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
"The heavens are telling the glory of God" presents the natural world as a continuous, wordless act of proclamation. The sky does not argue for God. It displays him, pouring forth speech day after day in the language of beauty, scale, and order. Every person who has stood under a clear night sky and felt something move inside them has been touched by what the psalmist is describing, the glory of God communicated through what he has made.
Psalm 104:24 O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
"In wisdom you have made them all" traces the variety and complexity of the natural world back to the wisdom of its maker. The manifold works of God in creation are not random or arbitrary. They reflect the same wisdom that orders the covenant, governs history, and is finally revealed in Christ. The naturalist who studies the intricacy of a single cell and the theologian who studies the intricacy of Scripture are, in the biblical imagination, attending to two expressions of the same divine mind.
Romans 1:20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse.
"Understood and seen through the things he has made" is Paul's claim that the natural world carries enough of God's self-disclosure to leave human beings without excuse for ignoring him. The creation is not a proof of God in the philosophical sense but a witness to him, a continuous testimony to his power and his nature that is available to every human being regardless of whether they have access to Scripture.
God's Care for the Natural World
Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
"Your heavenly Father feeds them" gives God's care for the birds a personal and active quality. The birds are not surviving by accident or by natural mechanism alone. They are being fed by a Father who attends to them, which makes the natural world a theater of divine provision rather than a closed system of cause and effect. Jesus uses this observation not to celebrate the birds but to address the anxiety of the people listening, pointing them toward the God who cares for what is small.
Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" is God's answer to Job from the whirlwind, and it is the most extended meditation on the natural world in the entire Bible. God does not answer Job's questions about suffering. He takes Job on a tour of creation, asking him about the morning stars, the storehouses of snow, the rain and the lightning, the wild ox and the ostrich, and the point accumulates with every unanswerable question: the God who made and governs all of this is the God Job has been addressing, and he is larger than Job's framework for him.
Psalm 65:9-10 You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.
"You visit the earth and water it" describes God's relationship to the natural world in terms of personal attention and active care. The rainfall, the softening of the soil, the blessing of growth, these are not impersonal natural processes in the psalmist's imagination. They are the visiting of a God who attends to his creation with the same care he attends to his people.
The Human Calling Within Nature
Genesis 1:28 God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
"Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing" is the cultural mandate, the human calling to exercise responsible authority over the natural world. The dominion God gives is not license to exploit but authority to steward, modeled on the dominion of a king who is accountable to the one who appointed him. The human being who exercises dominion over nature as though it belongs to them rather than to God has misread the commission.
Genesis 2:15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
"To till it and keep it" gives the human vocation within the natural world two verbs that are worth attending to. Abad, to till or to serve, describes the human being as the one who works the earth in its service. Shamar, to keep or to guard, describes the human being as the protector of what has been entrusted to them. Together they describe a relationship with the natural world that is neither passive nor exploitative but actively caring.
Proverbs 12:10 The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.
"The righteous know the needs of their animals" extends the category of righteousness to include the treatment of creatures in one's care. The person who is genuinely righteous before God will be attentive to the needs of the animals who depend on them, which is a specific and practical application of the broader calling to steward the natural world with care and wisdom.
Nature and the Power of God
Job 37:14-16 Hear this, O Job; stop and consider the wondrous works of God. Do you know how God lays his command upon them, and causes the lightning of his cloud to shine? Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of the one whose knowledge is perfect?
"Stop and consider the wondrous works of God" is the invitation to contemplation that runs through the natural world like a recurring invitation. The lightning, the clouds, the balancing of atmospheric systems, these are presented not as natural phenomena to be explained but as wondrous works to be considered, the visible expressions of knowledge that is perfect and power that is complete.
Mark 4:39-41 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
"Even the wind and the sea obey him" is the disciples' recognition that they are in the presence of someone whose authority extends over the natural order itself. The calming of the storm is not merely a miracle. It is a revelation, the disclosure of the one through whom all things were made exercising the authority that was always his over the creation that has always been his.
Psalm 29:3-4 The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
"The voice of the Lord is over the waters" traces the power of the storm back to the voice of God moving through it. The psalm presents the thunderstorm not as a natural phenomenon with a theological explanation but as the voice of God itself moving through the natural world. The power of the storm is the power of the one who speaks through it.
Nature and the New Creation
Romans 8:19-21 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
"The creation waits with eager longing" gives the natural world a posture of expectation that is one of the most striking images in Paul's letters. The groaning of nature is not the random suffering of an indifferent universe. It is the labor pain of a creation that is moving toward something, the freedom and the glory that the children of God will share with everything God has made.
Isaiah 55:12 For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
"The mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" is Isaiah's vision of the natural world participating in the joy of God's redemption. The image is not literal but it is not merely poetic either. It expresses the conviction that the restoration God is bringing will be experienced by the whole of creation, not only by the human beings at its center.
Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
"I saw a new heaven and a new earth" is John's vision of the final destination of creation, which is not its destruction but its renewal. The new earth is not a replacement for the old one but its transformation, the fulfillment of what the original creation was always meant to become. The God who called the first creation good will make the new creation glorious, and it will be recognizably continuous with what he made in the beginning.
A Simple Way to Pray
Lord, every time I step outside I am stepping into a gallery of your glory. Teach me to see what the heavens are telling, to hear what the day and night are declaring. Give me the attentiveness to the natural world that reflects the care of the one who made it, and the humility to remember that I am a steward of what belongs to you rather than an owner who can do with it as I please. And fill me with the hope of the new creation, the day when the mountains burst into song and everything you made is finally and fully what you always intended it to be. Amen.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Bible support caring for the environment? Yes. Genesis 2:15's call to till and keep the garden, Proverbs 12:10's description of the righteous person as one who knows the needs of their animals, and Romans 8's portrait of a creation groaning for liberation all point toward a theology of creation care that takes the natural world seriously as something God made, declared good, and intends to restore. The dominion of Genesis 1:28 is stewardship accountable to God, not license to exploit.
What does the Bible mean when it says creation is groaning? Romans 8:19-22 describes the natural world as having been subjected to futility as a consequence of human sin and as groaning together in the pains of childbirth while waiting for liberation. Paul is not describing the natural world as conscious in the human sense but as caught up in the consequences of the fall and included in the scope of the redemption that Christ has accomplished. The groaning is the condition of a creation that was made for something better than what sin has done to it.
Is it spiritual to find God in nature? Yes, carefully. Psalm 19 and Romans 1:20 both affirm that the natural world is a genuine medium of God's self-disclosure, revealing his power, his wisdom, and his glory to those who attend to it. But Scripture also consistently warns against the worship of the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25), and the natural world's testimony about God is general rather than specific: it can point to the existence and power of God but not to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which requires the specific testimony of Scripture and the proclamation of the church.
Does the Bible say anything about the beauty of nature? Yes, consistently and without apology. Psalm 104 is a sustained meditation on the beauty and variety of the natural world as an expression of God's wisdom and generosity. Job 38 and 39 describe the natural world in terms that are explicitly awed by its wildness and its complexity. Jesus points to the lilies of the field as surpassing the glory of Solomon. Beauty in the natural world is not incidental to the biblical vision. It is a primary medium through which God communicates his own character to the people he has made.
Will nature be destroyed at the end of time or renewed? Renewed. Revelation 21:1's vision of a new heaven and a new earth, Romans 8:21's promise that creation will be set free from its bondage to decay, and Isaiah 65:17's promise of a new creation all point toward transformation rather than annihilation. The new creation is not the absence of the physical but its renewal, the fulfillment of what the original creation was always meant to become. The God who called the first creation good intends to make the new creation glorious.
